Also, here is an article about a group consisting of 10 local, high-performing schools. We are working together to identify the factors needed to measure the true success of a district, over and above the state report care.

Milford and 9 other high-performing local school districts have formed a group called Coalition of Academic Standards of Excellence (CASE), dedicated to finding new ways of measuring district performance & student achievement. We are not satisfied relying only on what the state requires, and we are finding other ways to supplement state information to determine if we are providing what students need to succeed. Read the articlehere, and please share what you think.

In a different twist, the board and attendees adjourned at the beginning of the meeting to the football stadium to see the Milford Marching Band’s parent performance. After 3 weeks of band camp, the band presented two of its three show segments. It was a fun way to start the meeting! A video of the show will be posted soon, and I will link it here.

Every summer, ShareFest, a collaboration of churches from around the area, helps our district (and many, many other places) with improvement projects. This year, ShareFest helped spread mulch at all the preschools, a job which Operations Manager Jeff Johnson said would have eaten up his maintenance people for weeks; and painted the board’s office annex, which is behind South. Dave Zimmerman accepted the Certificate of Appreciation and showed a short video of some ShareFest projects. Twenty-six people spent six hours just on the board annex – what a job! Thank you, ShareFest, for your help this year and every year!

Food Service provided its annual report. The program, which provides services not only to Milford but to other schools as well, will serve a total of 24 sites and two Head Starts this year. Nine new schools are coming on board, including Finneytown and Seton.

Some highlights from last year: the program added breakfast & lunch at the Success Academy; added Loveland Early Learning Head Start; entered a shared services agreement with Wyoming schools; eliminated all fried foods from the district; planted veggie gardens at Meadowview, Boyd and Mulberry, and taught the kids about growing vegetables; and increased Wyoming lunches from 70,000 to 117,000, and milk consumption +12,000 cups.

This year, in addition to continuing to improve food choices and delivery, the program will add the nine new schools and will explore nutritious vending machines for Milford and Wyoming High Schools.

The board approved the State and Federal grants for 2012-13. We will receive $2.1 million from Federal grants, down $688,000 from last year, and expect $493,242 from the State, down $8,240 from last year (some of these are not yet finalized).

The majority of the decrease in Federal grants comes from elimination of the Ed Jobs money. The district had hired additional support with this money, but we have eliminated those positions since the funds are no longer available. We have a policy that, if grants are eliminated, we will not automatically retain that cost in the budget. While the personnel and other types of support is a huge help to the district and our students, we are careful not to allow grants that may last only a few years become an ongoing part of our budget without specific analysis and approval.

The board approved appropriations for 2012-13 (Fiscal Year 2013). These are down versus projected last year, given the reductions we were able to achieve last year. They are also reflected in the Five-Year Forecast.